Poll Results
Added 2024-07-31 12:11:00 +0000 UTCBefore anything else, just a quick notice...don't expect a release of My Hero Automata tomorrow. I'll get it out as soon as possible, but life events have kicked me in the rear all month and I've lost a few steps. Hopefully, it won't be more than a few days later than usual.
Alright! With that boring but necessary warning out of the way, I've just finished tabulating the vote weighing for the monthly poll! The results were...predictable but not as utterly one sided as they could have been. Let's take a look!
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One Piece - Halfway Broken: 133
Harry Potter - Pandora's Box: 59
Mass Effect - Eridium Dreams: 21
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Honestly? Harry Potter - Pandora's Box managed to put up a darn impressive number, likely on the back of having actually gotten an update (albeit a small one). That said, One Piece - Halfway Broken was just too steep of a hill to overcome. This time, at least.
Given the underwhelming performance of Eridium Dreams, I'm considering putting up a couple of new story concepts instead of it until the next time it gets an update. Not that new concepts will likely have an easy time overcoming the momentum of Halfway Broken either :-p. But they might have at least a small chance, if they are appealing enough! I haven't decided one way or another if I'll do that. I have a bit of time to mull it over, since I typically don't put the new poll up until the previous winner gets its update. One way or the other, Eridium Dreams won't be abandoned. It's slated to get an update the next time I can squeeze something extra in. Though it's hard to say when that will happen -_-.
Regardless, the winner this month is clear. One Piece - Halfway Broken will once again be getting an update in August!
Comments
The games don't do a good job of showing it, but Handsome jack really did send lots of forces though? Just mostly bots and such? Plus he had the whole giant space canon thing? Like the lore is that he was wiping out all sorts of bandit towns (and by extension all towns, thus why Sanctuary was so important), though with the predominant percentage of Pandora's population being freed/abandoned convict labor that Dahl used for mining before Atlas' Crimson Lance drove them off the planet, well Jack could be argued to have a point to his "wipe out everyone" kick. Not really a good one, but still there is grounds for argument. Anyways, I always felt like there were limitations to the combat shown in gameplay as compared to the lore set-up/call-backs. Like the Crimson Lance DLC was supposed to be a full army that you/the Vault hunters blow through. Facing Handsome jack and all the waves of mechs/bots/etc is supposed to be him bringing out this ridiculous swarm of opponents. That absolutely massive space station is supposed to be packed full of assembly lines just constantly sending down mining equipment (he was mining a eridium) and combat units. Heck, Jack is supposed to be responsible for literally changing the geography/climate of Pandora as the whole First boss on that frozen ship was supposed and that whole area was supposed to have been subjected to some sort of massive flash freeze that trapped the ship in the first place. I did find this timeline that helps flesh out some of the setting better: https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Borderlands_Setting_Timeline It references a lore book: https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/The_Worlds_of_Borderlands Though it doesn't seem like it gets into the nitty gritty as much as it just expands a bit more on some of the references and defines a timeline or some such. They are apparently making a Borderlands movie though, which might get a novellization and such generally give more lore/world building than movies show. As for having FTL and bringing massive numbers to bear, I think that is part of the plot/lore that happens in Borderlands 3. The twins that are the antagonists in BL3 are the leaders of a cult swarming across multiple planets and unlocking multiple vaults all over the place. Sure the game probably has a very limited scope shown in the playthrough (it's no Halo Reach with all its background combat scenarios and etc, the Borderlands games just aren't that kind of game being more character and story driven than semi-realistic combat Sims. More adventure/exploration sandbox than tactical combat/mission focused.) The lore of the characters also helps give some detail (and there are apparently prequel comics about the first game Vault hunters' origins: https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Borderlands:_Origins No there isn't much detail on technical specifications or the mechanics of society and/or civilization. Yes a fusion could be heavily biased to a secondary source, but thats where taking elements of multiple sources and maybe even re-labeling some stuff with Borderlands corporation names. One thing of note, the whole verse apparently spans multiple galaxies (so would guess some kind of jump drives) yet only twenty something planets are even mentioned and another half dozen or so habitable moons. Less than 30 planet(oid)s are even mentioned, and yet the name of human-controlled expanse is called the Six Galaxies according to the wiki. As such there really is room for expansion. The best way to go about it might be to have characters from elsewhere end up somehow (temporarily?) stranded on Pandora and severely throw off canon. Even little things. Like who needs a Catch a ride if they have a vehicle/tank(mako)/gunship/etc of their own from the start? A whole swath of the start of the first game would be pushed aside with just that one change. Well, that and actually having realistically destructable terrain/building supplies. Who really needs a key to bust open a sheet metal and chain link fenced gate? Especially if they have a tank/car with rocket launcher. Yes, that would mean to some degree writing it as a canon-rehash, at the very least. That said it would quickly go out of the control from the games if you had a person/team completely non-caring about property damage to just brute force to the various situations. .. and it's late enough I am losing my train of thought, and probably have left unclear ramblings towards the end (I did erase the nonsense stuff I typed as I held a finger to the screen as I dozed off earlier
Keht Jelicho
2024-08-03 04:18:16 +0000 UTCSo, essentially you'd promote the idea of a Fusion more than a crossover, fully merging Borderlands with something else to make up for the lack of Borderlands Lore. I admit, I actually considered something like that with Eridium Dreams, but ended up switching out for what's barely even a crossover, due to frustrated by how little detail I could find on Borderlands Lore. I'd originally wanted to set some version of the Borderlands verse up as the Humanity that ran into the Council, but I couldn't find enough details on what the Borderlands tech was like. (Ships, in particular, were a problem). Going the other direction, importing lore into Borderland COULD work, maybe, with the right material. I have a feeling it would end up pretty heavily biased toward the other half of the Fusion though. There are just so many holes to patch from basic stuff in Borderlands that isn't explained. Like their level of FTL travel their capable of. There are implications that they make causal use of pretty fast FTL with how easily new Vault Hunters arrive. At the same time, though...no one seems to use it to put in mass numbers. Handsome Jack was extremely Rich and should have been able to just bring in thousands of professional mercs if FTL really IS super common. So...which was is it? Stuff like that. Yeah, I'm a bit like you that I came into Borderlands with B2. I actually DID get all the way through it, with multiple playthroughs, then backtracked to play B1. Though I never finished B1 fully since I couldn't find a character I clicked with combat wise. My issue came in that I REALLY like the Maya character. She was by far my favorite character in the series...and it leaked early that they killed her off in B3. For basically reasons of 'because we want to be dramatic,' rather than any good reason, too.
Novus Peregrine
2024-08-03 02:24:19 +0000 UTCFair enough and yes, Gearbox should consider spin-off games/lore books/etc that focus on the rest of their 'verse. Maybe a "corpo war" type deal? Or an actual prequel (though there would be no vault so would have to have a different end game focus) where Tannis and Marcus and Moxxi are younger and/or just arrived, and maybe when Dahl was the big company involved on Pandora [their uses of convict labor for mining and subsequent freeing of said convicts when they pulled off planet was the origin of the bandits and Scavs] or even before Dahl caused "The Crackening" on Elpis. Basically during the "gold rush" early settlement of Pandora. Then play through the events (Atlas sending the Crimson Lance being included) where Dahl is driven off planet and the convicts are released. But enough speculation on what other games in the series, or sharing its universe could be like. I get what you mean about being limited to Canon-adjacent lore and thus canon-rehash type stories because of it. That is part of why I mentioned the "reverse Eridium Dreams" idea, mainly to show that taking elements of other sources to change up the canon (a cross-under I think I heard such called before) could give a new avenue to play with, or a fleshing out of the unmentioned side-lore with elements taken from other sources could give more room to play. Eridium creates "biotics" among humans which are a kind of "siren lite" deal, and it can also be used similar to Eezo for some mass effect type technologies. The verse is the same one as Firefly, just before the Browncoat rebellions or a few centuries after (to explain the big corporations involvements on frontier worlds better, as in the time of the show they weren't shown to be involved or there weren't magacorporations in that time) so Psychos/bandits/scavs/etc are tied into the Reavers/Miranda experiment, or if nothing else you can have a "core planets" faction with the corporations of Borderlands being only corporations for the outer planets. You could have the Dead Space games happen in the same universe (perhaps necromorphs are released from a vault?) and thus have elements from it added to the world. You could have the system from The Outer Worlds and all it's corporations and etc be part of the lore (the cryo-ships and such being part of an earlier wave of space colonization and that colony being one of the furthest out/away from main colonization efforts and it just gets rediscovered once you have your character get off Pandora. Heck, you could have the Battlestar Galatica stumble upon Pandora/this branch of humanity, and the Cylons coming after them. There are plenty of sci-fi source materials that could be added to flesh out and expand upon the Borderlands cast/story and used to drastically change canon. Heck, you could even disregard all the sequels (except for if you decided to add any of their characters) and have the Vault in the first game actually contain a Stargate and have the whole of Borderlands planets be a non-earth branch of humanity that the Altera seeded in an otherwise isolated section of the galaxy, or even in a different one all together. Or it could be a different kind of portal to other sci-fi or fantasy worlds (they open it only to find it contains only an odd stone arch.. only for a stunned Sirius Black to come flying through it shortly after? If so then maybe that universe's Harry comes after Sirius, or the vault being open lets the Siren powers of Commandant Steele find a new host in Harry (if you want to make him a male siren, or it could be a fem-harry alt) which could happen, again, either if (fem-)harry followed Sirius or if the siren power could go through the arch for a new host (or it could be someone else completely, just felt siren powers could be a literal "power he knows not" situation). Cross it with the Witcher-verse and have Ciri fleeing the Wild Hunt show up on Pandora. Have the Vault contain Xenomorph/facehugger egg sacks. Have "the Demon" aka Masterchief within the vault in stasis. Borderlands is not that expansive to make for a good standalone-source fanfic, but it's very aspect of lacking a fleshed put lore let's it be a fantastic possibility for a melting pot of other sources to be added onto it. (Or if nothing else it can make for a good "tutorial" starting point for a Jumpchain, not that such stories seem to be much of your style. Though I might be able to see you having Angel, the technomancer/phase-shift siren, being brought over into another story's world. I can see you making use of someone with her abilities if nothing else) Also, I cannot blame you for not playing BL3. I got into Borderlands late (Borderlands 2 was already out) and was working on playing through it some, with my primary character being Roland, when the PreSequel was released. My roommate got a rental of the Pre-Sequel and we, figuring it comes chronologically before Borderlands 2 decided to load it up. Only to discover the cut-scene talking about Roland being dead. Still have never completed neither the Pre-sequel nor Borderlands 2. Only even bought BL3 for Nintendo Switch earlier this summer because they were all on sale, and only played through the prologue to get a feel for the different characters. Anyway, what I am getting at is that I can understand holding back because a favorite character dies in a later installment.
Keht Jelicho
2024-08-02 08:51:37 +0000 UTCYeah, both Eridium Dreams and Pandora's Box suffer from being in the early stages of the story. Which is why I keep updating them when I can squeeze in the extra writing time, as I think they'll gather more of a following once they are deeper into their stories. As for a story about the Borderlands verse. That's...problematic. There's actually a pretty good reason why you don't see too many fanfictions in that series, and most of them don't get far. Specifically the issue is that there just isn't that much world/universe lore for Borderlands. We know, for example, that there are a ton of already populated worlds out there. Pandora is a relative backwater. There are, I think, four planets in B3 (which I refuse to play because I found out they killed my favorite character T-T). And there are mentions of a lot more throughout the series. It's hard to write in a universe that has so little supporting lore, unless your content with doing canon rehashes. Which...well...let's face it, that's not something I do :-p.
Novus Peregrine
2024-08-02 02:04:33 +0000 UTCWell that is a shame. I really enjoyed the Mass Effect verse with humanity having Borderlands type mechanics. At the same time I can really see why it might not be taking off. It has been a minute since my last re-read, but from what I remember it is very much a "prologue" state at the moment, lots of explanation and exposition to cover the differences and build up the world/galaxy/etc. If it got a few more updates and really started getting into the real story and progression of Mass Effect then it would probably pick up more interest. That said, if one of the concepts was a story actually based in Borderlands verse? I would definitely be interested in your take on a Borderlands AU. Though after discussing Eridium Dreams before the possibility of a Borderlands fic, I no have the idea of a mirrored fic: post-BL1 and Eridium release the different companies learn that Eridium exposure can make people gain some Siren-like abilities. In otherwords: a Borderlands story where Eridium can act somewhat like Eezo and leads to "biotics". With both canon Humanity's response to biotics from Mass effect and what the Borderlands corporations would do with that kind of knowledge.
Keht Jelicho
2024-07-31 21:44:33 +0000 UTCI like iridium dreams a lot, ngl, but I’ve been voting Harry Potter in the hopes we might get something besides one piece, but it looks like that isn’t happening xD
Danielle
2024-07-31 15:55:40 +0000 UTC
